'If Coetzee's first novels examined the wounds left by colonial and post-colonial times in South Africa and speak, more often than not, by letting them bleed more openly, the recent novels have focused on new and broader topics. The texts of the recent decade have opened another field, either by launching a sort of 'auto-fiction in which one cannot distinguish between 'real' memories and invented stories, or by creating a new novelistic space to explore. This is the case in The Childhood of Jesus, since the first thing that strikes any reader is that we have to follow the engrossing adventures of Simon and David by adapting, as they do, to a world in which all the rules are new. They look like refugees from another continent, probably devastated by a war or a catastrophe, moving to Novilla, a city designed for immigrants leaving behind their former lives. However, in this new setting, The Childhood of Jesus manages to repeat and invert the main plot of The Master of Petersburg. Both novels are connected by the topos of a father who comes to terms with paternity by facing a son who is not really his son. ' (Introduction)
